1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an endoscope system and an endoscopic observation method. This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2006-148039, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
In an conventional endoscope system, in order to correctly detect a location of a tip of an insertion part to be inserted into a body cavity of a living organism, a mark that indicates a distance from the tip of the insertion part is provided on an outer surface of the insertion part, and the mark is read using a reading device. The technique is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 55-116330 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-105725.
In the case of a side view observation that acquires images of an subject in a direction orthogonal to an insertion direction, because an outer diameter of the insertion part is limited, the image to be acquired at one acquisition is a strip-shaped image that has a very narrow width along the insertion direction of the insertion part. Then, to acquire sequential images in the insertion direction of the insertion part within a desired range, it is necessary to repeat the image capturing by sending the each image by the width of the strip-shaped image acquired at one acquisition.
However, generally, the insertion part of the endoscope is manually inserted into the living organism by an operator. Then, the amount of the image to be transmitted and the insertion speed are not constant. Accordingly, if the insertion part is quickly inserted, the acquired images become fragments, and the image of the affected part may not be acquired.